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In my interpretation of The War of the Worlds, the Martians attack hapless planet Earth not because they need water or are merely imperialistic, but in retaliation for us having sent El Brendel to their planet.Armed with the knowledge of the shtick El Brendel will force upon both his Martian and human viewers, when the 1930 science fiction musical comedy Just Imagine asks us to “just imagine,” it seems more of a chilling warning than a hopeful dream. Once you have experienced the comedic stylings of this one time vaudeville sensation, you will have no choice but to stare directly into the muzzle of that Martian heat ray, shrug, and admit that we’re really getting what we deserve. In fact, we’re probably getting off easy. Continue reading…

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Days after we rang in the New Year, I finished a year spent reading all of the Fantastic Four comics, from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s earth-shattering first issue in 1961, which explained how four family members and friends were transformed by cosmic rays into super-powered adventurers, through the latest issues in 2015 by James Robinson and Leonard Kirk, in which those same four people are facing yet another trial that threatens their very existence. My reading included most of the related mini-series and secondary series, plus crossovers and event books (even though I have yet to read the entire run of Marvel Two-in-One, the long-running team-up book starring the idol o’ millions, the ever-lovin’ Thing).

As soon as I finished the epic run by writer Jonathan Hickman and various artists—the last run that I had not read in its entirety when it came out, much to my detriment—my first thought was, like a kid on a roller coaster, “I want to do it again!” I find myself with a profound love for these characters, even though I didn’t read them as a kid, coming to them only as an adult (and fairly recently at that). What is it about Reed Richards, the self-proclaimed Mr. Fantastic, whose body became as flexible as his scientific genius, while in the area of romance he remained as stiff as a board? Or Sue Storm Richards, the Invisible Woman (and Reed’s long-suffering partner), who transformed over the years from the perpetual hostage into the powerhouse of the team? What draws me to Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, who is the group’s Peter Pan while at the same time possessing awesome destructive power that he constantly struggles to keep under control? Or Ben Grimm, the Thing, whose focus on his rocky exterior blinds him to his inherent goodness and virtue, which his beloved (and literally blind) Alicia Masters can perceive all too well? Continue reading…

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Hasbro’s toy brand Transformers turned thirty last year. Children around the world have been hearing the Transformers’ story for decades, passed on by cartoons, comics, movies, and toys. It’s always the same, more or less. An alien race of transforming robots is at war, divided into two factions:
the villainous Decepticons, led by Megatron, and the heroic Autobots under Optimus Prime. Their battle takes them across the stars to Earth, where they use their abilities to disguise themselves as everyday vehicles.

Things are a little different these days, at least in some corners of the galaxy. In 2012, publisher IDW revamped its Transformers comics. Senior editor John Barber and his team replaced the central conceit of a never-ending interplanetary war with an uneasy peace between Autobots and Decepticons. IDW’s offering is diverse, sophisticated, and provocative. It has ranged from the political drama Robots in Disguise to Tom Scioli’s psychedelic Transformers vs G.I. Joe and the offbeat space opera More Than Meets The Eye. Continue reading…

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I never expected to be reading Archie comics. Archie Andrews’ irresistible appeal to ladies mystified me and I came late to an appreciation for soap operas and straight melodrama. Then there was residual stuff around romance, a punk rock hostility towards the wholesome squares, a dash of internalized sexism mixed with gender dysphoria and a general preference for anything with monsters or things that one could just not find very easily in the real world. I like my escapism pretty fantastic and unrealistic. I did use bits of Betty & Veronica Double Digest in the zine I organized for my college women’s center. But somehow I always end up reading and watching things I never expect to. I got curious about Archie. With Archie: The Married Life and the release of a standalone book for Archie’s out gay character, Kevin Keller, something was clearly up at Archie comics. Then Chris Sims recommended Archie: The Married Life at Comics Alliance and one of my favorite comics writers, Marc Andreyko, recommended it on Fresh Ink with Blair Butler saying, “I love that Archie is probably the most progressive mainstream publisher right now.”

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The Harry Potter books are an oddity in the book world. Not just because they sell so well, but because of how they sell – or rather, when. Each book has a strangely limited shelf life. Rowling’s newest title might sell three-quarters of a million copies in 24 hours, but then, well, it’s pretty much over. Sales fall off the map. Each of her books is the Best-Selling Book Evar!, but only for a week. Every other week, every other day, the best-selling author in the world is Nora Roberts.

Some of that is sheer logistics. Backlist is what truly powers an author’s career. Rowling has seven books. As I write this, Nora has more than 175 titles in print, and the gods alone know how many reprints. The real estate she occupies in terms of shelf space is truly extraordinary. There are so many reissues, repackages and omnibus editions of her work that her publishers brand each previously unpublished title with a stylized ‘NR’, so her legions of readers will know what’s actually new.

Which still gives readers lots to choose from. Roberts usually has five or six new titles each year. That number used to be higher, seven, eight, even nine, but in the late nineties, Nora stopped writing category romances (‘category’ is an industry term for line novels, like those of Mills & Boon, Harlequin, and Silhouette). Nora was, in fact, one of the primary reasons for the success of Silhouette Books, which began as a category imprint of Simon & Schuster. After the bloody publishing house wars of the mid-eighties, Harlequin emerged triumphant, but kept all the Silhouette lines as a separate imprint within their romance empire. Roberts continued to write for Silhouette throughout, even as she branched off into writing more mainstream titles for Bantam. Eventually, she moved to Putnam where, in the words of my Putnam rep, “she finally found an editor who could keep up with her”.

The story of Nora’s start is well known in romance circles, and loved with fairy-tale familiarity. It’s also vintage Nora. At the time, Roberts was a young single mother with two small (and energetic) sons. Trapped indoors by a blizzard that kept school cancelled for days, her only respite was the writing break she allowed herself in the afternoons. The boys were told not to interrupt unless there was fire or blood. Practicality, humour and hard work: these are some of the reasons Roberts is such a huge success. It took a few tries and several manuscripts, but in 1981, Irish Thoroughbred was published by Silhouette, and a publishing legend was born.

Sounds melodramatic, eh? ‘Legend’. But it’s true. In the publishing world, Nora Roberts is Babe Ruth and Wayne Gretzky combined. She has won every award in the field multiple times. She has had more books on the New York Times list than any other author, in the number one spot, no less. She was a founding member of the Romance Writers of America, and the first person inducted into the Romance Writers Hall of Fame. Last year alone, four of her books were made into movies for the Lifetime Channel, and earlier this year, on Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 Artists and Entertainers, Nora was #7.

Her stratospheric career has not been entirely free from strife. Janet Dailey, herself a successful romance novelist, inexplicably plagiarized one of Roberts’ novels. Nora sued and won. But she didn’t dwell, and she wasn’t vindictive. She donated the settlement to a literacy foundation, and moved on.

The wellspring of Nora’s creativity is grounded by a work ethic of pure steel. Her book tour schedules read like a Spartan death march: TV spot at 6am, radio at 7, warehouse by 8 to sign a thousand copies of the new hardcover, then off to the bookstore for noon… and it goes on like that for weeks. But tours aside, she doesn’t live the jet-set lifestyle. Her family is her centre. And besides, she always more stories to tell. Well-grounded, well-liked by her collegues, and well-loved by her fans: that’s Nora Roberts.

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Chris Szego thinks the world would be a better place if more authors acted like Nora while on tour.

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I’ve never read Nora Roberts’ romance stories, but under her pen name of JD Robb, I’ve read all of her books. I admire her work ethic and ability to write creatively and constantly. Writing is not a hobby and not to be taken lightly. Real writers rely on perspiration more than inspiration!

I wrote up a short list of the main female characters that appear both on the show and in the comic to decipher the differences in how these women are written. These descriptions contain spoilers through season five of the TV show, because it’s impossible to write about The Walking Dead without talking about how people die all the time.”

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Vixen Varsity shares Olufemi Lee-Johnson’s tribute to Milestone Media and Dwayne McDuffie. “For the first time in my life, I was around comic writers of color telling stories that mirror or surpassed the storylines of America’s favorite heroes. Icon dealt with being the ultimate immigrant and not understanding current black culture. Rocket (Raquel Irvin) was his guide, but also aspired to be more than just a woman in the projects. Static (Virgil Hawkins) was just a normal teenager dealing with fitting into school and then was put into this extraordinary circumstance of being a hero. Hardware (Curtis Metcalf) wanted respect from his mentor, but later learned about the bigger picture when it came to being a hero and the characters from Blood Syndicate…they were just trying to make it day by day and maintain their respect as a gang.”

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At Soundcheck, John Schaefer talks with Jim Jarmusch about “making music for someone else’s films, and a penchant for walking the tightrope between narrative and abstract art in his own movies. And if you thought his C.V. was looking a little thin, Jarmusch is also working on an upcoming opera about the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla, with Robert Wilson and composer Phil Kline.” (Thanks, Kate!)